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OLDEST 

ADDRESS 

4 ' 1 

V« 

BEFORE THE 

IK HABITANTS’ A SSO CI ATI OK 

OF WASHINGTON. D. C., 

By Mr. A. G. Riddle, 

T. 


ON THE 


159th ANNIVERSARY OF WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY, 


JUDD 4 DETWEILER, PRINTERS. WASHINGTON, D. C. 














ADDRESS 


BEFORE THE 


OLDEST INHABITANTS’ ASSOCIATION 

OF WASHINGTON. D. C., 


By Mr. A. G. Riddle, 


ON THE 


159th ANNIVERSARY OF WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY. 

i 


JUDD & DETWEILER, PRINTERS. WASHINGTON, D. 

£ 












ARGUMENT. 


Great men—Tlieir coming—Mary Ball—George Washington—His work 
—Its estimate—We could not have formed the Constitution—Recon¬ 
struction a stupendous blunder—Unable to deal with its abiding evils 
—Was a political necessity—Freedmen, as citizens, an inert mass— 
A solid South a solid worth—Colored leaders—Remedy, a division of 
colored citizens between the two parties. 

The North denies suffrage to the colored citizens in this District as does 
the South, and for the same reason. 

The District—Its needs—Its late government expunged—Citizens disfran¬ 
chised—That made permanent—The true reason—Is unconstitutional 
—Decision of the Supreme Court—Position of Washington excep¬ 
tional—Congress cannot govern it—This shown—The laws in force 
in it—Specimens—Attempts to codif)’—ist, 2d, 3d, and 4th Codes— 
Why Congress cannot govern the District—Justice to Congress—The 
House—Daw-makers are foreigners —Have Districts of their own— 
The District must be postponed to the Nation—Progress of the Dis¬ 
trict—Madison—Must become a State—Now has the full constitution 
—The colored citizen should vote here—Till then the South not to 
be condemned—If Republican party unequal to the question will 
perish—What we owe that race—We need a constant exercise of self- 
government—Our sons never reach full American age—Rffects, etc. 


Venerable Gentlemen of this Honored Order: 

GREAT MEN—WASHINGTON AND HIS WORK. 

We 1 iave a way of saying that we no longer have great 
men; the earth no longer brings them forth. Wo have dis¬ 
tinguished men, eminent men, any quantity of first men; 
every place has many. “ He is one of our very first men ” 
One important tiling lost sight of, we may remember, for the 
consolation of we common men in this country, we have 
lifted up the mass; have so elevated ourselves that there is 
no longer the great difference there once was between great 
and common men. They may loom large in the distance ; 
they diminish as we approach, and we meet men about our 
size. 

We common men do the common work—are born to it. 

Great men come as naturally to the great jobs. Their 
coming is a mystery. The first we know of them, they are 
at work; then we do not recognize them readily. Men 

(3) 



4 


believe great men are specially raised up. They are them¬ 
selves unconscious of that. The men born to missions are, 
as we find, always cranks—mental-moral tramps. 

Who knows the law producing great men? Who will 
undertake, of all the boys born, to name one who will be 
great or eminent ? They come from the most unexpected 
homes—laborers’ cottages often—are never born in purple; 
no one proclaims them. We find them at their work ; that 
is their proclamation. 

They are never bom alone ; they come in groups. That 
has ever been the law, as if they would want the help of 
giants. The greatest is the great one of a group of great. 

Poets come together. Homer alone of his time survives. 
All the song of that day is ascribed to him. That is the 
fortune of a great man; all the work of his age becomes his. 
Shakespeare! see how he came attended. He may live 
alone three thousand years hence. Byron and Shelley were 
stars of a constellation; so Goethe was attended by peers. 
Prophets, * closely allied to the poets, come in schools; so do 
the orators always; so the discoverers and inventors ; so of 
the great generals and great artists. Why is it? Wash¬ 
ington did not come alone. He would have done little if 
he had. Great statesmen, great orators, great commanders, 
surrounded him ; he was greatest of all—greater than all; 
so great that much that others did is esteemed his. 

Great epochs do not produce great men. Great men make 
great ages. The revolution did not make Washington. He 
and his compeers made the revolution. 

Below and back of them were latent causes, divers, produc¬ 
ing both. 

Inscrutable are the causes—the hidden germs and springs 
that go to the production of great men—beyond the mere 
movements of a race or people. 

A strange thing in the world’s history is, that very rarely 
has a great man been followed by a great son. Phillip was 
followed by Alexander, and there are similar instances in 
the history of the early Turkish sultans. Edward III was 
father of the Black Prince, and William Pitt, first Earl of 


5 


Chatham, was followed by William Pitt the younger. In 
our history are the Adamses. These men were fortunate in 
their choice of wives. 

A great man was never born of a weak, common-place 
mother—though they may spring from a common-place 
father. A mother cannot impart what she has not to give; 
she does more than receive and transmit—she gives of her 
own strength. 

Here was Augustine Washington—the third generation of 
Washingtons in Virginia—whose first wife left him with 
four children. Of these, Lawrence and Augustine lived 
through manhood. On the 6th of March, 1730, he wedded 
Mary Ball, forever blessed among women. Her first child, 
born two years later, was George Washington. Had an an¬ 
cient hero achieved his position, the legend of his birth 
would tell of attendant wonders in the heavens and prodi¬ 
gies on the earth. A nimbus would surround his mother’s 
head. 

An English lord chancellor, a statesman and an orator, 
said that the test of the progress of a people, a State, or 
nation is the rank in which it places Washington. By the 
universal consent of all civilized peoples, this son of Mary 
stands the first of mankind. When his monument was 
built every race, nation, and people—from remote lands, from 
the graves of buried empires, from the lonely islands of the 
sea—brought their most enduring substances,glad and proud 
to aid in its upbuilding—in a way a needless labor! Why 
set up monuments to the fame that fills the arches of the 
sky, and forever will, till those forms of light vanish, till the 
earth unpeopled wanders darkling in sunless space. The 
structure makes concrete our reverent love and gratitude, 
with no thought of commejnorating this fame. 

Return to the argument. To this pair were born four 
more children, all, as were the older, good, sensible, common¬ 
place men and women and no more—remembered only as 
the kindred of George Washington. How came it? Had 
George been but the one child, and thus endowed and thus 
destined the wonder would be less. But none of his brothers 


6 


or sisters shared of his great qualities. Why was it ? What 
is the law ? With him, as with all great men, no one an¬ 
ticipated his future. No one noted him, his sayings and 
doings, and, as always happens, when fame came to him the 
wise and curious, from scantest material, invented what 
seemed a fitting childhood and boyhood for him. 

If we only knew of the advent of one of the to-be famous! 
If the man himself knew ! George unconsciously went about 
the work of his time in the ordinary way. It would seem 
as if Mary—great mother—from the first was aware that 
unusual powers had been imparted to this son; and certainly 
she, with the scrupulous integrity of a clear, far-seeing, 
strong-brained, just soul, guarded the treasure and directed 
the feet of her child with rare wisdom and courage; and the 
wonder is that more such children were not born of her— 
the only woman who could bear such a child. She too shall 
have her monument. 

I am not to follow the career of Washington, nor attempt 
any analysis of his labors, his qualities, or his character. 
Genius itself, with creative imagination and apt powers of 
expression, can say nothing new or impart new interest to 
the old. It was his fortune to render to his countrymen and 
to the world some of the greatest services and benefits 
ever conferred, and as such they are acknowledged and 
honored. 

We cannot say that this—these were the product of his 
head and hand alone. A great group of men shared to 
their best in his labors. We can say that without him that 
group of great men could never have accomplished the 
work. He was the great center—the magnet—the bond of 
union, and strength, and ever-enduring courage. Without 
him the great cause would have gone to ruin in a month. 
Even after the war, had it not been for him the broken, 
warring, lost fragments of the American States, would have 
been added to the wide wreckage of human endeavor that 
strews the devious pathways of human history. 

In this way all we have gained, as well as much that we 
have avoided of ill, is due to him—is his work. 


We have a way of saying that our Government is the 
greatest, the wisest, and the best that God ever aided men 
to form. It is time we had passed the day of silly boasting. 
It, or something like it, has been tried by other liberated 
peoples, with whom it did not work. The Latin races have 
not found it suited to them. Our fathers were still English¬ 
men. The nearly two hundred years had not fully Ameri¬ 
canized them—we are only full Americans now. It was the 
rare gift of the makers of this Government to have the sa¬ 
gacity and wisdom to see what their exceptional conditions 
required, and the skill, courage, and constructive ability to 
frame a scheme of government probably the best adapted 
to their needs. This is rare praise. In this sense it was one 
of the wisest and best. Save us, there was not then nor now 
a people who could successfully work it. It would have 
failed then in the hands of any man but Washington. 

Let us be done with Fourth of July babble, and study 
and understand and appreciate what we have and how we 
got it. So, too, w r e have outgrown some other things—our 
young people’s sensitiveness as to what others say about us. 
I lived through the green age of Capt. Basil Hall, and Mrs. 
Trollope, and her “ Domestic Manners of the Americans.” * 

One of the merits of our Constitution is, that it deals 
largely in general principles, which, in the hands of wise 
legislators, are in a way flexible and easy of application 
to many conditions. Unlike the later State constitutions, 
which, instead of being institutional, are sections of irrepeal- 
able statutes, that are found impracticable—can neither be 
got around or got over. 

The Government, thus formulated and carefully planted 
and nursed by Washington, took strong root and grew. 
Vigorous growth was essential. The tests of war, of party, 

* Capt. Cyril Smellfungus, as Edward Everett called him. His was, 
then, the sharpest pen in America; Willis and Curtis and Lowxll were 
then growing. So I can recall the later advent of Dickens, with his red 
vest and cockney manners, and the abominably silly ovations on his re¬ 
ception in the Eastern cities, whiph he repaid in small notes. N|o wonder 
they disliked them. What would then have been said of Kipling’s snarl¬ 
ing letters ? They are old letters and should have been left in India. 



8 


factional, and sectional strife, but strengthened and con¬ 
firmed it. 

The war for its destruction made it perpetual ; made this 
city its enduring home. 

RECONSTRUCTION A BLUNDER. 

Some things due to the war are not out of place on this 
great anniversary, the day that made all our anniversaries 
possible. 

We may compare and contrast ourselves and our works 
of the last war and the exigencies it caused, with the labors 
of Washington and his compeers under the demands of the 
first war. 

In the dismal days of failure of the first and second years 
of our war, there were many recurring times when the 
reflection was uttered in sickness of soul, “ We could not 
have achieved the Revolution.” May we not say now that 
we could not have formulated and grown the Constitution 
and Government? It may be remembered that from our 
labors we excluded the men of one-half of the Republic— 
the half that produced Washington, the Lees, Henrys, Pen¬ 
dletons, and Rutledges. The Man of men who had managed, 
conducted, and sometimes led us through the war, was also 
absent. Perhaps no human skill was equal to the task 
which the North had, in a way, brought upon itself. 
Looking at the work now, after the fourth of a century, 
the course pursued seems a gigantic blunder, the evils of 
which still convulse the land. They are now too great for 
the very able men who conduct the councils of the majority 
in Congress, who lead when their partisans will follow. 
These men, in full accord with the Executive head, a man 
not unequal to his position, are baffled by the very evils 
flowing from our faulty readjustment of the political condi¬ 
tions springing from the war. While the land of Wash¬ 
ington, whose representatives have long reoccupied their old 
places at the council board, content themselves with thwart¬ 
ing the will of the majority, as if content with the wide¬ 
spread disorder. They certainly propose no remedies. Of 


9 


all days, this is the one on which a man should utter Ins in¬ 
nermost convictions on this grave matter. 

We—or, rather, the war—freed the slaves. The war com¬ 
pelled the proclamation, dictated its own policy, fought itself. 
That is why it succeeded. The South was conquered by 
the war, after it had first conquered the North. 

These millions thus freed were not deported. Since the 
Assyrian’s time that has not been attempted on a large plane. 
Nebuchadnezzer would have carried away the masters. He 
was sagacious. The emancipated had not the impulse of 
primitive tribes to remove themselves. There was no land 
to which they might flee. They were free—were to remain. 
They were not prepared to make conquests, like the escap¬ 
ing Israelites from Egypt. They were without leaders— 
have none now. 

The masters, stung by the defeat from the lost field—im¬ 
poverished in their war-wasted lands and homes; their 
slaves, their most available property, changed to profitless 
persons in their houses and on their estates—the problems 
of life, property, and government now for the first time arose, 
under such conditions, in human history. These ex-masters 
and ex-slaves were to dwell, rule, govern together as politi¬ 
cal equals. The Constitution was the underlying law of 
the land, the States indestructible political entities. The 
action of some of the Legislatures at once showed that the 
freedmen could not be left to their guardianship. 

On the other hand, the men who fought the war in Con¬ 
gress, the Cabinet, in the field, and still full of the war spirit, 
were hardly the best men to deal with the problems which 
they could not avoid. The war-horse never works well 
to the plough and cart. He is not always safe in the 
family carriage. He has visions of the listed field, of the 
headlong charge. He fancies be hears the bugle when 
anything reminds him of the war. 

There was the Thirteenth Amendment affirming emancipa¬ 
tion, the Fourteenth—finally the Fifteenth. Congress had 
rejected the Southern Representatives of the old regime. 
Then came fierce war with the President, to complicate mat- 


10 


ters. The National Union Convention had alarmed the 
Republicans. Meantime the military district system, with 
the brigadiers and soldiers, was in full tide. This last was 
most im-American. It gave the Northern Democracy vast 
leverage. 

THE NEW STATE GOVERNMENTS. 

Republican supremacy was menaced at the North. At 
the crisis the freedmen were drafted , so to say, as the 
working power, into the organized new State governments. 
They were masses by the hundred thousand, whose only 
schooling was in generations of slavery, in whom the sav¬ 
age virtues of their ancestors had long since given place 
to the civilized vices of their masters. Men who had no con¬ 
ception of personal obedience to municipal law, and no idea 
of what that was, were made the working units of the new 
political organizations to govern their ex-masters and them¬ 
selves, elect, be elected, make and enforce laws. 

The head is supposed to lodge the brains, is esteemed the 
dominant organ, and rules. The new scheme reversed that 
theory and elevated the heads antithesis to rule. It did 
not work well. It never has, though often tried. The re¬ 
sult was not a decent travesty of government. It was much 
worse. George Washington resting on the everlasting 
granite of his character, and wielding the primal forces 
with which nature hollowed the basins of the oceans and 
fashioned the continents, w'ould have failed here. George 
would not have undertaken the quest. 

I know very well the exigency which led to this enter¬ 
prise. There was a notable though not a large gathering 
of men, some of the most notable of that day and some with 
slender claim to be heard there, to discuss the scheme. “ The 
question ” (the political condition of the recovered States), 
said the head of the third co-ordinate department, “ must be 
passed out of the field of national politics. It can only be 
done by restoring the States to their places under the Con¬ 
stitution. The Republican party is necessary to the pre¬ 
served Republic. The freedmen are necessary to the party 
of preservation.” It was replied “ that the proposed govern- 


11 


ment would be more odious to the North than the generals 
and soldiers. The army would be as necessary to them as 
to the military governors.” 

The 14th amendment disfranchised the men of the South 
engaged in the war, to be restored only by Congress. It 
was supposed Congress would so exercise this power as to 
secure staunch support to the new governments, and it used 
the power most liberally. The governments, the frame-work, 
were sustained. 

The times were revolutionary, men were accustomed to 
violence and blood. We look more leniently upon political 
crimes than those prompted by malice, lust, or lucre; and 
very soon the old idea was realized, the head was in its 
ancient place, and the colored citizen was nearly in his old 
place, where he still is, substantially. By the erection of the 
new State governments and making the freedmen their 
citizens, the Republicans placed them out of their own power 
for protection or succor. The instances where Congress can 
legislate directly upon the citizens of a State are few and 
unimportant. The instances in which it can legislate upon 
States for any purpose are hard to find. The Fourteenth 
Amendment has a scarcely worthy device whereby the 
Southern States were to be induced to recognize the political 
rights of the colored citizen or be punished for not so doing— 
a provision they have utterly disregarded and which has 
never been ‘enforced against them or sought to be. The 
Republicans, as the sole remedy, now propose and at¬ 
tempt to pass an election law to ensure to the power to vote, 
its due exerdise by the colored citizen. Thus far they have 
failed. The Democrats declare it never shall pass. They 
have even threatened to secede —from Chicago —if it does. 
The South is united on this. It is now as when legalized 
slavery existed. Everything was made to yield to sustain 
that. The condition politically has not changed a hair. 
What an awful hindrance this is to the South. Why don’t 
they invent an escape from it? What an obstruction, 
annoyance, and peril this state is to the whole of the Re¬ 
public. Has not the South learned that its stupid inertness 


12 


\ 


is always confronted by a solid North, and always will be ? 
Nothing is wanted to ensure it at the next general election 
but the execution of the stupid threat of rebellion against 
Christopher Columbus, of blessed memory. 

THE REAL CAUSE. 

What is the gist of this deplorable state, its nerve-center ? 
The colored citizens are Republicans—will vote the Repub¬ 
lican ticket—are solid ; hence the solid South which is corre¬ 
lated every four years by a solid North. Why are these 
people to-day Republicans, all in a mass? The}?- are of no 
earthly use to the Republican party, but a hindrance. That 
is the great cause of their own political paralysis. It renders 
them powerless to help themselves as to help others, or be 
helped. Gratitude to the Republicans? Oh, the cause for 
that was cancelled long ago. 

THE REMEDY. 

As one present and doing his best to help form the Re¬ 
publican party and who has had no thought or wish but 
for its steady success, who has a great liking for Democrats— 
as private citizens —I wish fully half of the colored citizens 
would, as speedily as is decent, become and remain Democrats 
all through the South. 

Had I the ear of the Southern Republican leaders, black 
and white, I would implore that they, as soon as practicable, 
require that at least a half, and not the worst half, become 
politically Dembcrats and stay such. There is very little 
difference in the working doctrines of the two flarties. The 
Democrats begun six years ago to administer the Govern¬ 
ment according to Republican principles and policy,, and 
did it very well. Indeed, nobpdy will seriously think of 
running it on any other. 

A division of the colored voters South is the only practical 
solution of this great question. It places them on ground 
where they can be useful and receive recognition and bene¬ 
fits. In losing them the National Republicans gain rather 
than lose. Massed as they now are, they compel the mass 


13 


of the white citizens to herd as Democrats. Prevent them 
from becoming practical Republicans, whatever may be their 
views. Divide and there will be a competition between the 
two parties for the colored vote. The race will become of 
political consequence and receive the consideration due to 
American citizens. 

THE COLORED MASS—THEIR LEADERS. 

In all these years their attitude has been that of a man 
whose journey is delayed' by a river, and who supinely sits 
upon its bank to wait for it to run by, so he can proceed 
on his way. The river— 

-Running runs, 

And will run forever on. 

It is time they were up and doing for themselves. We 
Republicans can do nothing for them. They are a hin¬ 
drance to us, a hindrance to the South, to the Republic; a 
mass of the dead past, to which the Nation is chained, com¬ 
pelling us to fight over our dead issues and keep alive great 
irritations, hopelessly chronic. This people are here to stay. 
They must be elevated, or we descend. There must be a 
common plain of association with them, and the lower it is 
the worse for all. We, the children of a thousand years of 
civilization, enriched by all the older world gave us, are im¬ 
patient, intolerant of this the youngest race in progress. 
We cannot wait for the slower Indian—we kill him, at the 
proper point of starvation. There are too many of the 
Negro. He fis too tough and capable; is a being of great 
possibilities of culture and power. Millions, and yet they are 
mere units—not having tven ethnic or tribal bonds—nothing 
but color, a common misfortune, a present hopeless state, a 
helpless waiting. They are a people without traditions 
connecting them with any past. Thus far no leader has 
appeared among them. If one had, with the instincts, the 
grasp and power of the really great, he would have led 
them with their citizenship, sagaciously, to a position where 
it would be for the interest of the dominant race to care for 



14 


them. He would not hold them helplessly massed in torpid 
antagonism to the men who inevitably must rule. We 
have the same problem here in this District; the same race 
under similar conditions. It is because of this presence that 
our own race are here so patient under their debased un- 
American position in the Republic, which I will discuss. 

I linger a moment to venture a word of the educated, 
oultured colored leaders, whose chief value so far is, to dem¬ 
onstrate the capabilities of their race, which are large. They 
are leaders with no following, apd cannot have in their 
present position. Think of it!. These, the most advanced, 
the nearest to us in developed capacity, are ever looking to us 
for our favor, our recognition, our applause, if mayhap, they 
may gain some distinguishing personal position. And the 
Executive is supposed to favor the race or not as he advances 
■one of it. This he must do with utmost caution. The offices 
are for the use of the people; and it must be an extreme case 
that warrants the appointment of a person in a place, where 
he is for any reason odious or obnoxious. These leaders 
stand out from their race, ask recognition from us, compete 
with each other for our favor, are rivals—enemies, while the 
common mass of the colored share to the fullest, our vulgar 
estimate of the men of their own race. If they need a 
lawyer, a doctor, an artist, or mechanic they pass the com¬ 
petent men of their own race for one of ours, because of their 
color, and the young colored professional man has to com¬ 
pete with the white men of his profession, for the patronage 
of his own race. 

This state of things is not due to any natural deficiency 
of the colored men, professional or lay; but is the unavoid¬ 
able result of their position; and if they would only look 
to and stand by and advance each other, the colored problem 
would take a perceptible step toward solution. I do not 
discuss the important point whether there is such a ques¬ 
tion distinct from other political problems. It is at least 
one of them, of overshadowing importance, upon which, if 
a man has any thought, he should straightway utter it. 


15 


THE DISTRICT—ITS NEEDS. 

Reverently we will invoke the presence, on this his day, of 
the august shade of Washington. His queries will not be of 
the grand structures of the Government, nor of the elegant 
residences of the wealthy, nor yet of the wondrous beauty 
of the city. But he asks: “What of the people? What of 
their rights, their privileges, under the exceptional govern¬ 
ment ordained for them ? Surely, surely, the people of the 
capital have to the largest shared of the best and most ex¬ 
tensive benefits that their deservings and the wisdom of 
rulers could devise. They should be models illustrative, in 
the eyes of the nations, of the blessings of our institutions.” 

Illustrious spirit! the people of your city are citizens but 
in name. Save sitting as jurors, they possess no pretense of 
any right, power, or privilege of the American citizen. 
They are not consulted as to the imposition of the taxes 
they pay, nor yet of the purpose to which they shall be 
applied. 

“ How is this? Have you forgotten that we declared that 
all the powers of a government can be derived only from 
the people, and can alone be exercised by their free consent? 
How have you been bribed to relinquish this birthright of 
American citizens outweighing all price? Tell me, what 
did you receive in exchange?” 

We received nothing; were never consulted. 

With severity: “ Your rights could be taken from you 
only as forfeiture for the greatest crimes. In what were you 
found guilty, that a whole people should suffer? ” 

Revered Father, we are guiltless of offense; were not ac¬ 
cused. 

“ Not accused! Speak you for your fellows. Make this 
clear, O man of this generation ! ” 

It has been said that Congress alone could govern us; 
that it cannot delegate this power even to the people to be 
governed. 

“ Where got your Congress this power? You say you did 
not grant it. It could be derived from no other source. 


16 


The exclusion of our constitution was against interference 
of the States—all outside powers. Congress was to govern, 
but assuredly in accord with American ideas. This, your 
government, is in violation of the most fundamental of 
them. Men of the younger generations, have you never 
heard of the utterance of James Madison upon this ques¬ 
tion in the great exposition of our work by himself, Hamil¬ 
ton, and Jay—our understanding of our own work? Or? 
have men come to know more of what we intended than 
did we? ” 

Great Sire, it is also said that we cannot be trusted with 
the government of ourselves; that we have been tested, 
tried. 

“What sarcasm is this and what irony applied to Con¬ 
gress! The result of its exclusive government, then, has 
been to reduce you in intelligence and virtue to a point 
where you can no longer be trusted to care for yourselves. 
What must the other peoples think of this exemplification 
of republican institutions? Speak freely, men of this day, 
to this matter, that we may judge of those who govern as 
of you who are thus governed. How, in what have you 
shown inability for self-government ? ” 

THE LATE DISTRICT GOVERNMENT. 

Listen, most illustrious of men! Twenty years ago we 
asked for an enlarged municipal government, wholly elec¬ 
tive. With care we drew out the scheme in form and asked 
its enactment. Its form was preserved; but when it came 
back to us as a law approved by your successor in the great 
office, we found, oh, Great Benefactor, our Governor and Sec¬ 
retary were to be appointed by the President. So, also, was 
the Boards of Public Works and of Health. The council— 
our senate—was to be appointed, also, by him. All the jus¬ 
tices of the peace, all our officers and boards, created or then 
in existence, were appointive by the President, his Governor, 
and.council. Not one was elective. 

We, the people, could only elect twenty-two delegates to 
the lower house and a non-voting delegate to the House of 


17 


Representatives. This was the full extent of our power. 
This travesty of an American Government by the people 
entered upon its labors June 1, 1871, and was unqualifiedly 
repealed by its authors June 20,1874, because we had in that 
time and way , shown ourselves incompetent to govern ourselves , 
and that with Congress all the time supervising the acts of 
the legislature. Nay, it doubled our taxation for that year, 
because its own agents, governors, councilors, board of pub¬ 
lic works, and others had exercised their functions in a way 
not pleasing to it. Congress then hastily extemporized a com- 
missional government, and three gentlemen from three re¬ 
mote States were called to rule over us. 

“ My children,” we may imagine the vanishing shade as 
saying in solemn sadness, “ if you are content with this utter 
loss of citizens’ rights, that in a measure justifies your de¬ 
privation of them. No people numerous as are you can fail, 
thus submissive, to lose the high and noble personal qualities 
developed alone by the constant exercise of citizen rights 
and powers. I care not what you may have received instead 
of these withheld; nothing can compensate for their loss. 
Adieu.” 

DISFRANCHISEMENT PERPETUAL. 

One thing here I may say further. After four years of that 
makeshift, no-voting experiment, Congress, June 11, 1878, 
ordained it' as a permanent government, with some slight 
amendments of the temporary scheme, some improvements, 
and one most decidedly for the worse, the military commissioner. 

By this act disfranchisement was perpetuated. In the 
intervening years men of fortune had built residences; power¬ 
ful Senators, wealthy Representatives, the great tribunes of 
the people of the States, had become property-owners; so 
also had there come to be a large, a very large, percentage 
of the males eligible to the elective franchise, of the colored 
race, parts of the same race which the South, as. we have 
just seen, have excluded by means of their own, from the 
use of the franchise; and rather than that they should vote, 
impose taxation on this to-be-favored property and its 
owners, the franchise was abolished, or rather the only sub- 
2 


18 


jects for its exercise were; a more ingenious but more sinister 
method than that practiced at the South, and much more 
efficacious. The pure whites, descendants of the soldiers 
under the immediate command of him whose day we here 
commemorate, were necessarily disfranchised also. I do not 
say that this was the sole reason. I do say that had it not 
been for these colored citizens, the franchise for some pur¬ 
poses would have been continued. The leaders who would 
compel the rulers of the South to give honest effect to the 
colored suffrage, deny it here, where they are the exclusive 
legislators, and to do this the more effectively, they un- 
Americanized 200,000; citizens by blood, birth, inheritance, 
and the provisions of the ,Constitution and of their own laws. 
And this in violation of the first section of the Fourteenth 
Amendment, that prohibits States from like legislation, and 
forbids Congress also as well, as I will show you. 

DISFRANCHISEMENT UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 

I assert that this sweeping from us the right of the elective 
franchise, and with it all citizen rights, was a violation of the 
Fourteenth Amendment. I refer you to that famous clause 
in section ten, article first, of the Constitution: “ No State shall 
pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts.” 

“ XIV. All persons born or naturalized in the United 
States, &c. ****** 

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge 
the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United 
States; nor shall,” etc. 

Proclaimed Juty 28, 1868. 15 Stats., p. 708. 

Compare, contrast these prohibitions. They are of one 
character, one nature; their purpose the same—to secure the 
inviolability of the fundamental principles, the primal 
bonds of human association. The one forever secures the 
faith of contracts among men ; the other, more fundamental, 
protects man’s rights from the invasion of the government 
itself. Each, in terms, excludes the United States, acting by 
its Congress from its provision. 

Yet, in fact and law, if one of these does include Congress, 


19 


so must the other. Neither is framed to prevent the States 
from infringing a power granted by the Constitution to Con¬ 
gress, but simply from working wrong directly by legislation. 
Is anybody prepared to insist that Congress has an express 
grant of power to do the gravest wrong and injustice; pass 
a law, the direct purpose of which is to strip from men all 
semblance of the right of self-government, and place that in 
the hands of others ? I need not argue this on principle. It 
needs but to be stated. It is a great self-evident truth that 
would be obscured by argument. 

Happily, the great Supreme Court has directly adjudged 
this matter. 

The act of February 25, 1862 (12 Stats., 345), authorizing 
the issue of Treasury notes as money, declares that “ they 
shall also be lawful money and a legal tender in payment 
of all debts,” &c. They were tendered in payment of a 
promissory note made before the law was enacted, and it was 
contended that it impaired the obligation of the note and 
hence was void—was unconstitutional. 

The Court said : “ It is true that this prohibition is not 
applied in terms to the Government of the United States. 
Congress has express power to enact bankrupt laws, and we 
do not say that a law made in the execution of any other 
express power, which incidentally only impairs the obliga¬ 
tion of a contract, can be held to be unconstitutional for that 
reason. 

“ But we think it clear that those who framed and those 
who adopted the Constitution intended that the spirit of this 
prohibition should pervade the entire body of legislation, 
and that the justice which the Constitution was ordained to 
establish was not thought by them to be compatible with 
legislation of an opposite tendency. In other words, we 
cannot doubt that a law not made in pursuance of an express 
power , which necessarily and in its direct operation impairs the 
obligation of contracts , is inconsistent with the spirit of the Con¬ 
stitution.” 

J. Clifford in Hepburn vs. Griswold, 8 Wall., 603; see 
p. 623. 


20 


The Court held that when the note was made it could 
only be discharged by gold and silver, and hence the pro¬ 
vision making it payable in a mere paper promise to pay, was 
void. 

In Knox vs. Lee, and also in Parker vs. Davis (12 Wall., 
457), the question was again solemnly passed upon. The 
Court held that a payment in legal-tender notes did not 
impair the obligation of the contract. That was a promise to 
pay in money, declared to be money by Congress, at the time 
the note fell due. The Court conceded that if the law did 
directly and purposely impair the obligation to pay it would 
be void. 

The three cases concur that Congress cannot directly im¬ 
pair the obligation of a contract, but if in the execution of a 
direct grant an incidental condition of things should arise, 
by which the obligation was impaired, the law would never¬ 
theless be valid. 

That is the rule to be applied to this legislation. If in a 
state of war it becomes necessary to set aside the civil govern¬ 
ment by the citizens and substitute the military, as an inci¬ 
dent, the civil rights of citizens must for the time be sus¬ 
pended with the writ of habeas corpus ; but that any man can 
be found who will contend that Congress, in a reign of peace, 
can, as it declares it has, permanently, not merely suspend 
but annihilate citizen rights in this District, now, when the 
question is for the first time made, is gravely doubted. 

THE POSITION OF WASHINGTON EXCEPTIONAL. 

Thepositionof this city is unlike that of any other American 
city, in this: Every other city ig under the fostering care of an 
immediate State government, beyond which, for its national 
protection, is the National Government. These are supple¬ 
mented by its own municipal government, of ample powers 
for its corporate purposes. 

CONGRESS INCOMPETENT TO GOVERN THE DISTRICT. 

We have neither State, or municipal, and no other organi¬ 
zation than the District boundaries. We are 260,000 people 


21 


delivered, stripped and bound, into the hands of Congress at 
its discretion, which does not treat us as an American people. 
It governs us, and has, and will, precisely as might be ex¬ 
pected. Great and, in the main, wise and patriotic as it is 
the Congress of the United States is the worst body that 
can be devised for the exclusive legislation of this, in many 
ways, favored city. This is established by the whole course 
of its exercise of this powers in the premises. Take an in¬ 
stance long-continued, chronic, ludicrous: 

The District, this city, has been under this exclusive Con¬ 
gressional government since 1800—ninety-one years. By act 
of Congress the laws in force in Maryland February 27,1801, 
were continued in force in the District until changed by Con¬ 
gress. Whoever would know what this means, remember¬ 
ing that we had the entire body of the common law, let him 
consult the two huge quarto unpaged volumes of statutes of 
that venerable State (Kilty’s Statutes), where he will find the 
royal charter of Charles, by the scant grace of God, etc., all 
the colonial statutes, beginning with those enacted at St. 
Mary’s, May 10,1692. Let him examine Alexander’s volume 
of a thousand pages of English statutes, in force in Maryland 
till the Declaration of Independence, and so remained the 
law of the land and came to us. These, supplemented by 
the acts of Congress, scattered through its twenty-five huge 
tomes, the ordinances of the municipal corporations of Wash¬ 
ington, Georgetown, and of the Levy Court, for the land outside 
the limits of the two cities. Then came a volume of statutes 
from the late legislature of the District itself. These crude, 
undigested statutes constitute the present laws of this law- 
blessed land on the northern bank of the Potomac, within 
the lines of the ancient cession of Maryland. To these may 
be added the^elder ecclesiastic law. Certainly no equal por¬ 
tion of the earth’s surface is so buried and burdened with 
the more or less dead and decaying foliage of legislative 
bodies, kings and kings’ courts, parliaments, barons, and 
bishops, and councils. He will find at least three articles of 
the ancient charter of Runnymede. The whole is an un¬ 
rivalled legal museum. If anything, more striking to-day 


22 


than when created, as it was, and ever since has been pre¬ 
served by the “ exclusive legislation of Congress.” 

Within eighteen months a ladies’ association wished to 
prevent one of our street railroad companies from the labor 
of changing its tracks and working power, on Sundays. The 
Commissioners sent the question to me to find what was the 
law. Like the younger Mr. Weller, I found it “ a pursuit of 
knowledge under difficulties.” Our legislature had not 
found time to deal with it. Congress had forbidden its 
naval students from study and beer-working processes on 
Sunday. The corporation of our city had closed drinking 
places on that day. With a sigh I betook me to Kilty. 
There I found by an ancient act of Maryland— 

“ Nameless there forever more,” 

though in force here, that work on the Christian Sabbath 
was highly penal. It is the act of 1723, 10th section, and 
imposes a fine of two hundred pounds-of tobacco, this was a 
legal currency of that day and now, as would seem, also of this 
favored District. The first section of the act, equally in force 
here, defines and punishes blasphemy. For the first offense 
the convict was bored through the tongue and fined; for the 
second, branded on the forehead with the letter B and fined ; 
for the third he was to suffer death. There was later a Mary¬ 
land act commuting these tobacco penalties into a more 
modern currency. Here I called in the aid of my fellow- 
officer and sufferer, a gentleman rarely equalled for erudi¬ 
tion, as you know. He reported that the commutation act 
had been several times suspended, and whether in force on 
that 27th of February, 1801, was a thing of doubt, which 
would be resolved in favor of the party prosecuted, and so 
the penalty could not now be imposed for want of law. 

That reminded me that my first struggle with Kilty’s 
statutes was an attempt to secure the maintenance of a 
child whose parents were not wedded, and I found that the 
male parent had to pay so many pounds of tobacco per 
month, and then I encountered the commutation-act problem. 

The boring, burning, and whipping for blasphemy was 


23 


repealed in 1819, too late to help us, where the old rigors 
remain the law, as in the matter of the maintenance of the 
named class of children. Poor things, they have nothing 
but tobacco straight. 

These are specimens of our laws surrounded with the 
whole kindred brood of that age. 

While every other State and people have escaped the dark 
ages of the law, we are in the twilight of the middle. Wher¬ 
ever we were we are still there, and have been these ninety 
years. 

Some ineffective efforts have from time to time been made 
to correct this state of our law. Time itself has drifted from 
us the tongue-boring, forehead-branding, tobacco ages—has 
sloughed them off into the great gulf of the obsolete. 

FIRST CODIFICATION. 

March 3, 1855, Congress made provision for codifying the 
laws of the District. The President was to appoint two 
codifiers and the board of aldermen and common councils 
of Washington and Georgetown and the Levy Court were 
to appoint a board of revisers, aided by the Attorney General. 
When the work was complete the President was to set a day 
for its acceptance or rejection by the free white males of full 
age, citizens of the United States and one year’s residence 
(10 Stats., 642). The work was an admirable piece of legisla¬ 
tion of that day, known as the “ Auld Code.” But think of 
submitting such a piece of legislation and legal work to a 
popular vote! The result would depend upon the influence 
and success of those having the affirmative. It is like the 
submission qf a modern protective or free trade tariff, where, 
state the question as you may, free-trade or protection is the 
affirmative, and that side, other things not interfering, is and 
will be beaten. 

In those pastoral days, as I have been told, the grounds 
and headwaters and along the banks of crystal Goose Creek * 
were the feeding haunts of numerous herds of domestic geese. 


* Now the Tiber. 



24 


The Code abridged their rights. 

It was obnoxious to the hackmen. 

It was obnoxious to the gamblers. 

The three parties fused, as we say, and, as might have 
been expected, the men of methods, the hack-drivers, and 
the geese were too many for the men of the Code. 

Instead of taking up the excellent and expensive work and 
passing it as an act, Congress left the geese and their allies 
to rule the field as geese will. 

The late District government was created by act of Con¬ 
gress February 21, 1871 (16 Stats., 419). 

The legislature under it, on the 18th of December follow¬ 
ing, authorized the Governor (Cook) and Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia (Cartter) to appoint 
a commission of five, to codify the whole body of the law, 
which, when approved by the District Supreme Court, was to 
be reported to the legislature to be acted upon and passed into 
law. 

That commission, an able body, did its work thoroughly 
and well. When it was passed upon by our judges they 
called to their aid the abler of our bar. Yet ere it could be 
acted upon by the legislature, that, with every vestige of 
citizenship, as stated, were swept from the world of living 
men. 

In mockery, the District was declared still to be a mu¬ 
nicipal body corporate, to the very idea of which citizens, as 
corporators, are the controlling necessity. Without them a 
municipal body corporate is legally an unthinkable thing, 
to borrow from Herbert Spencer. 

We bore this carefully and laboriously wrought out code, 
respectfully to the feet of the Congress, and implored the 
action of its houses—Congress, that abyss that swallows all 
things lost to this District! 

After years, in 1879 (March 3d, 25 Stats., 405), Congress 
awoke to this matter, and directed the attorney for the Dis¬ 
trict to codify its laws, placing in his hands $5,000. He se¬ 
cured an able expert, appointed a clerk, gathered all the 
modern codes, and in a reasonable time furnished the draft 


25 


of a complete body of law. He thus commends it, for it has 
little of the work of his brain or hand. The House, with 
reasonable promptitude, passed the political part—a fourth 
of it—providing the Government machinery and prescribing 
the duties of the citizen. This reached the Senate, and, in 
the terse language of the ancient Hebrew historian, the 
code “ slept with its fathers.” 

Ten years later (March, 1889, 25 Stats., 872) and Congress 
again recurred to the District. It required the Supreme 
Court of the District of Columbia to appoint two gentlemen 
learned in the law to compile , arrange, and classify the 
statutes and parts of statutes in force—all such as would prop¬ 
erly fall within the scope of a civil and criminal code. The 
court made a good selection. The learned compilers are 
now at their work. They are limited to the work of compu¬ 
tation; searching the graves and caves of the past, from the 
day of John Lackland, if, mayhap, they can eke out a mot¬ 
ley which Congress will never fill out or touch with life. And 
thus, while all our kindred States and cities, in the cherish¬ 
ing hands of their legislatures, are pushed forward in the 
rapid march of progress, we remain bound to a dead past, 
and forever must. I know our city is beautiful to the eye; 
is becoming a wonder in the eyes of men, but its people are 
beleagured in it by the ghosts of the past. The mold and 
decay of the obsolete are in our life. The atmosphere we 
breathe is full of the choking dust of fossilized systems of 
laws and institutions. We want to feel the vigor and inspi¬ 
ration that can spring alone from the conscious power of be¬ 
ing masters of ourselves, and the daily use and free exercise 
of all our rights. 


JUSTICE TO CONGRESS. 

Of all the days of our calendar this requires of us the 
fullest measure of justice to others, certainly to those whom 
our countrymen, without our consent, have set to rule over 
us. It is not a pleasant labor to them and it confers neither 
fame nor profit. 

The philosophy of the history of a people must be sought 


26 


in its laws. The hidden, as the obvious, springs that have 
often prompted the movements of the American people and 
have always directed and guarded them, are to be sought in 
the twenty-six heavy volumes of the laws of Congress, of a 
century of legislation. The first act of its first year was 
approved June 1, 1789. Whoever examines the leading 
chapters, mindful of the Republic’s attendant history, will 
be struck with their practical adaptability to the needs of a 
progressive people—never obstructed by a blind adherence 
to the past, seldom delayed for want of courage to go for¬ 
ward. The work of these fifty-one Congresses was the work 
of the ages; their structure a living edifice—one of the later 
world’s wonders; its builders, the marked men of their 
generations, toiling ceaselessly, some times not seeing clearly, 
often laboring in the gloom of twilight, sometimes making 
grave mistakes, but never going far wrong or remaining 
long in error, and often baffled, as were the forming hands 
of the creation, by the sheer obduracy of matter. 

The American heart beats strongest in the House of Rep¬ 
resentatives, and there reside the inspiration and impelling 
power, as that is the seat of the Government of the Republic. 
We owe a measureless debt to the great Senate. The hearts 
and hopes of the American people dwell with their Repre¬ 
sentatives. The man who rules the House well or ill, stands 
next to the President. 

Let us state the case in brief and be done. As before 
stated, by the American scheme, a city has its own municipal 
self government. Outside and surrounding it is its State 
government. Beyond all, enclosing all the States, is the 
National Government. We have no semblance of the first 
and second, in accord with this scheme. 

OUR LAW-MAKERS CANNOT BE CITIZENS OF THE DISTRICT- 

THEIR WORK. 

We are the only people on earth forbidden to be ruled by 
its own citizens, whose organic law compels its rulers to have 


27 


their domiciles in other States. Rulers are the givers of the 
law. Ours are compelled to be foreigners. 

They are not chosen and appointed to govern us, but to 
do altogether other and vastly greater work. Because they 
have utterly failed to provide us with a government of our 
own, as the makers of the whole system intended, they are 
obliged, in a way, to govern us themselves. 

Each Representative has a district of his own, of equal or 
a larger area and with a population as great as ours. 
That is his home, the seat of his hopes, his ambitions. Its 
people are his constituents. He is their one man. There 
are his watchful, jealous rivals; his more watchful and alert 
political enemies. His district, people, their interests, and 
his enemies, demand every moment of his time, every exer¬ 
tion of his mind, every thought and wish of his heart. I 
wish you could suffer the burdens of one busy day of a 
Representative. He does not know us ; has no time for us, 
no thought or care for us. Why should he have ? How 
can he have ? And the Senators, each has a great State. 

These men have to legislate for the Republic. It requires 
all their time, all their united ability, all their exclusive 
attention. They should have no other w r ork. The public 
national business is rapidly increasing, and there is no 
possible way of adding to the working power of Congress. 
The work of the Fiftieth Congress covers 1,335 solid pages. 
The Fifty-first will rival that. 

In these conditions lies our difficulty. These men are 
enlightened, are just, and kindly disposed. Many give up 
their ambitions for us—many do, generously, nobly. We are 
a constant annoyance, and very likely for that reason, are not 
so high in their individual regards. 

We, like any other American people, want a constant 
exercise of the legislative power. We cannot invoke it. We 
have not had half our assigned days this present session; 
shall not get another day. Greater, more pressing demands 
are crushing, devouring these over-taxed men. What are we 
that 60,000,000 should be pushed by for 260,000 ! It cannot 


28 


be, never has been, and never will be, and there is no help 
for us but for Congress to find or take time enough to set us 
upon such feet of our own, as the organic law of the Republic 
permits to us. 

Ten years, and we shall number 500,000. Thirty—and 
we will double that. We want not a mere delegate in the 
House, but a Representative with the power and consequence 
of a vote; shall want two or three. If we are true to our¬ 
selves and our aspirations and grow to the destiny we may 
grasp, that thirty years will see a change of the organic law 
of the Republic for us, if necessary, and we shall have 
Senators and several Representatives. We will become the 
model people of the Republic. 

Shall we need an amendment of the Constitution to become 
a State in the American sense ? I must linger a moment 
for another new point. The Constitution is the law of the 
States—is their work. We may suppose them all present at 
its formation. The new States, in accepting it, thus assent 
to, approve its formation. Maryland, our State, was present, 
in fact, and aided in its structure. The Constitution was her 
changeless indestructible law—ours, ineradicably stamped 
upon, burnt into the soil under our feet, never to be effaced 
or wrenched away—all the Constitution, each and every 
part. Because we have not, could not, make use of, enjoy its 
organs and exercise their functions, they have not ceased; 
they have merely slept in enchantment till the hour when 
the prince comes to awaken with a kiss. I only awaken the 
question to-day. 

I fear I have wearied you, notwithstanding your kind at¬ 
tention. (Cries of “ Go on! ” “ Go on! ”) Until I go off? 
Thanks. I have already cited the Federalist. I read from 
the forty-third number:— 

“ The extent of this Federal District is sufficiently circum¬ 
scribed to satisfy every jealousy of an opposite nature; and 
as it is to be appropriated to this use with the consent of the 
State ceding it; as the State will no doubt provide in the 
compact for the rights and the consent of the citizens in- 


29 


habiting it; as the inhabitants will find sufficient induce¬ 
ments of interest to become willing parties to the cession; as 
they will have had their voice in the election of the govern¬ 
ment which is to exercise authority over them; as a munici¬ 
pal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, 
will, of course, be allowed them, and as the authority of the 
legislature of the State and of the inhabitants of the ceded 
part of it to concur in the cession will be derived from the 
whole people of the State, in their adoption of the Constitu¬ 
tion, every imaginable objection seems to be obviated.”— 1 Hhe 
Federalist, No. 4-3, Jan. 25, 1783; John C. Hamilton’s Edition, 
1869, p. 338. 

Mark the words “ a municipal legislature ”—not a board of 
aldermen and common council—a legislature, not appointed 
by the President but elective by us. 

“ No more voting for us, with these swarms of vicious—” 
spare that to me the most odious noun of English utter¬ 
ance. Oh, I know we shrink and shirk the common burden— 
our part of it. We will give up our rights, our powers, and 
so escape our duties, rather than face this thing like men. 
Think of our kindred at the South, who cannot escape it if 
they would. Let us help them in the only way possible. 
Surely we should share in this common burden. We can¬ 
not compel the Southerns, we can aid in their—our—the 
Republic’s relief. Our fathers, North and South, brought 
this thing on us. Shall we curse them and die, become self- 
emasculated ? Make political eunuchs of our sons and pre¬ 
vent their ever becoming of American full age? Let us be 
done, let everybody be done—most of all the governing ma¬ 
jority of Congress—with this everlasting clamor against the 
groaning and oppressed South, so long as they who rule 
deny the suffrage to the colored citizen here. The Republi¬ 
can party must rise equal to this great issue or perish. The 
earth is full of sinister signs of fate. If it cannot deal with 
this thing let it get out of the way. The Alliance under 
wiser leading, or a new crystallization of political matter, 
will deal with it and with many other things. 


30 


You may not accept my convictions on this question; but 
sooner than deny them utterance here this day, like Prince 
Ferdinand, I would permit- carrion flies to breed their larvae, 
in my mouth. These men should have the suffrage—all 
men and all women too. Every intelligent human being, 
the subject of human government, should each, for him or 
herself, have voice in it. Educate these smitten children of 
Africa and of a more benighted prejudice. Make intelligence 
a condition of the right to vote—set that as a prize to this 
emulous race—and, my word for it, in the race to the ballot- 
box they will outstrip the more stupid whites compelled to start 
with them. If they could elect a Republican representative 
to sit in the House of Representatives, how long would they 
have to wait for the chance? For them, for their children, 
for our own as well, we now want a dozen more school-houses. 
Build them or build more prisons and lazar-houses. Let us 
have, at last, cease to avenge our own neglect upon the 
downward-moving multitude, “ whose feet take hold on 
hell,” and whom we subject to prison, to convict discipline 
that damns the soul while yet the body lives. 

A National Park of romantic Rock Creek Valley was a 
cherished notion of mine. I once secured a conveyance of 
a coveted part of the area selected, a donation, to the com¬ 
missioners. Yet I could not persuade them to accept and 
report it to Congress. Let Congress take our money for this. 
purpose if it will, while unused millions of stupid silver that 
no man will use, lies walled up. It may turn those beautiful 
winding wooded banks into caves and dens for savage brutes 
and reptiles, pollute the creek’s tide with the slime and filth of 
cold-blooded monsters, for aught I care; but I raise my voice 
to protest that these downward tides of young and old, of 
all colors and bloods, that haurit our beautiful city, flowing 
ceaselessly an ever-swelling tide to our jails and prisons and 
criminal courts, a propelling stream driving the awful “ mills 
of the gods,” shall be diverted into other channels and led to 
flow to other fates. 

Pardon this length. 


31 


I must turn once again to my personal plaint. 

I have here reared from infancy to manhood’s years a 
brainy, ingenuous boy. There also came to my side another, 
born here, and still youthful. In this broad land there are 
none, not one of his age, to whom he is second. These youths 
have not, cannot here reach the period of full American 
maturity—are to remain dwarfed. Do not tell me of the 
thousands of the great cities, born and grown in luxury, 
reared to scorn as low and vulgar the highest, noblest, and 
most important right and duty of the American born. Of 
such are not the kingdom of Heaven. These, my young 
men, were not born and reared without souls and aspirations ; 
and yet they have never voted and they never can, unless 
they go away, desert the homes of their fathers and sisters 
and the graves of their mothers. There are hundreds of 
other ingenuous youths their peers in fine qualities. For 
all these uncaring youths I speak. Oh, they may array 
themselves in fine clothes, carry canes, smoke cigarettes, 
attend parties and receptions, their clubs—poor boys—may¬ 
hap get a place in a department, and for the rest- 

There is no vigorous bracing air here, no stimulus, no 
manly competitions, that broaden and strengthen. There 
never will be, unless we awaken one and all. The District 

> 

bound hand and foot, wants these youths. They want her. 
They owe her the most sacred duty that men may pay the land 
of which they were born. The constitution of Washington 
is sleeping under their feet, awaiting their call. Their 
countrymen are not unjust nor ungenerous. 

Oh, J know there will be difficulties, there will be criti¬ 
cisms and quotations of restraining clauses. I know also 
that if it shall be found that there are seeming restrictions 
upon the broader, the deeper, the inalienable—I know that 
the throbbings of these last, as in the days and under the lead 
of Washington, will prevail; and if we are true the city that 
bears his name shall be recrowned with it, and become 
worthy to wear and bear it. 













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